


Codexes: The Courts

by deathwailart



Series: The Courts [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Codex - Freeform, Death, Demons, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Ghosts, Monsters, Nephilim, Phoenixes, Seelie Court, Unseelie Court, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of codex entries for The Courts verse</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Court Blood Moon

Court Blood Moon derives its name from the central forces governing the lives of its members; blood for the vampires, the moon for the werewolves.  This court prides itself on being the court that impressed upon its members the need to obey certain rules to help prevent discovery and further persecution; vampires and werewolves having suffered prejudice by common folk second only to those accused of witchcraft or being in possession of magic. 

Only the oldest members of the Courts may rule, some of them still able to remember the days before the creation of the Veil.  Indeed, Court Blood Moon is the oldest Court of those who were created and not born.  Their bases of operation are primarily in Europe - the most recent residences being in Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain though at some point they have been to every country to serve their members.  
  
This Court is seen as the strictest, perhaps owing to the continued fascination with their members by the normal world, their persecution throughout history or the low survival rates of those bitten.  No official estimates exist but some say survival odds can be anywhere between 1 in 10 to 1 in 1000, perhaps even lower still.  For these reasons and the need to preserve the integrity of the Veil, strict rules are applied to the creation of others.  Permission must be asked from the heads of the Court (and in the case of werewolves, their alpha must be asked if they have one) and the intended must be brought before the Courts so that all can be explained (if they decline, a fairy will erase that portion of their memory to preserve the Veil and that vampire/werewolf must sever all contact with the individual; assistance can be provided.)  Unauthorised creation is punishable by death.  Abandonment of the newly created is punishable by death.  Newly created vampires or werewolves who cannot be taught the ways of the Courts and prove to be too wild and feral must be executed.

The Veil and the safety of all must come first.

Current base: London, England  
Current liasons: Laurent Proulx (werewolf), Isaac Acker (vampire)  
Compiled by: Wakahisa Isamu (Court Eternal Flame)


	2. The Damned Court

There are many stories that circulate about those we would class as demons.  It must be that every culture has something that could be classed as one and it is the Damned Court that houses them, the demons, demonic and other malevolent forces capable of terrible deeds.  The most famous are of course those who stemmed from the fallen angels who followed Lucifer when he refused to worship anyone other than God but good luck trying to classify any of them.

The demons were the first with magic you see - they say they created it, bent it to their will, used what their angelic nature had warped into in many cases or stole it from fairies and anything else they could touch.  The suffering they inflicted was immense.  Thousands suffered.  They possessed important figures or any in a position of power and influence to exert control and have fun. 

It was why they were the court made from necessity.  For their court is as much a prison as it is a court.  Magic was stripped from them (not all, no one can entirely strip everything from a person, it is what makes a demon so dangerous you see) which was then let loose into the world.  This is where the magic that endangers humans comes from.  Either from the corrupted state given where it has come from or from a demon that wants it back.

Possession is the most common route for a demon in any case as constructing a body is time consuming and costly.  Most exist as shadow - it is erroneous to assume they are something as paltry as smoke - or perhaps some blood and bits of bone and sinew, maybe even flesh.  Most though are their essence and the essence of those they have taken and turned in time.  Possession is violent.  The host (known by many names including the impersonal and crude meatsuit) often cannot withstand the punishment it is put through at any level and when leaving it is either screaming out through the mouth in a cloud of ‘smoke’ or through a more violent explosion with a great deal of blood.  Those who survive are often damaged emotionally, mentally and physically.  Many commit suicide after what their body has been forced to do with them an unwilling passenger.

Demon social hierarchy is half government with different levels for different sins and types of deals or power and half animalistic, struggling and squabbling for dominance if one thinks one has the power to challenge those above them.  Of course death means just going back in the Pit for a demon to claw their way out leaving them hungrier and more cruel.

Remember at all times: the angels are terrifying because they can’t understand us.  The demons are terrifying because they _do_.


	3. Seelie and Unseelie Courts

"It makes little difference which of our courts you belong to you see," she tells me over a drink (my drink, we’re at the family pub _Alea Iacta Est_ one of the safe zones for our kind, she’s working behind the bar alongside her twin brother) with a smile that’s far too knowing.  Such is the way of fairies and who am I to contest her?  “We did it for everyone else seeing as you all seem to need the help, poor lambs.  It’s simpler that way.”  
"Fairies aren’t simple?"  
She gives me such a look, this girl of twenty-one years that I look away, embarrassed.  “I’m sorry,” I reply instantly and all is forgiven - I have offended in words and offered reparations.  She smiles again and nods.  
"I mean this obsession with light and dark all of you have, good and evil, as if the world is black and white."

In all honesty, it’s hard to disagree with her there. 

She apologises and excuses herself - there are other customers here, her and her twin flitting back and forth, a striking pair with their matching blue eyes and black hair and a certain level of _knowing_ in both of their eyes when they first meet yours, enough to be unsettling.  One would expect no less of a death omen and psychopomp though, fairy blood in a line of women finding its way to one of their rare sons.  For this family at least.  It’s easy to learn information on the oldest of the banshee lines that can trace all the way back to where they first began, an unbroken chain of blood and power with the utmost respect for their old ways and their duties underscoring everything.

She returns, wiping down the bar as she picks up where she left off.

"Really we should be trooping or non-trooping, my kind, the aos sí, we can’t honestly be classed as good or evil and we answer to authorities outside the Courts - Finvarra is still king after all.  Oh I know, the trooping fairies are the nices ones and the solitary are the wicked but nothing is ever simple."  
"I’ve had experience with fairies within and without the Courts, some of you warn me if I’ve caused offense-"  
"It’s not our duty to do so.  I suppose that’s why you call the Seelie the nice ones and Unseelie the wicked ones but I still prefer trooping and solitary, it works much better but seeing as we were some of the first to create the Courts then we did you all a favour."

_And you should all be grateful_ , is what I know she implies with the tilt of her chin recalling the high queens of bygone eras.  And who am I to argue?  It’s not done, arguing with the fairies because after all, a fairy is always right.

Interview conducted August 2001 in _Alea Iacta Est_ , Edinburgh, Scotland with Shirley McAllister (banshee) and Adam Peters, for the journal of the Peters family, hunters who follow the code.


	4. Court Burning Wings

How mournful they seem, those who make up Court Burning Wings, a name chosen in tribute to their kin, those who followed the brightest star, warped and twisted into demons who would number among the Damned Court and those others who fell from the heavens, all their power torn from them but doomed to live long lives bereft of God’s love and their siblings, either from forgetting themselves or from having no choice.

Mournful because how else should one look if they’ve taken up their flaming sword to fight their siblings, all created the same way, all meant to believe the same things.  The righteous ones, who only know justice and devotion to God.  Some have many faces - those of lions, wolves, birds - and others have many wings - six or more and some have a true form so glorious that it cannot be looked upon or contained within mortal bodies.  It is true that when they are at Court they take bodies for the sake of convenience though they are not the same bodies they will wear in the normal world.  There they contain themselves, fashioning bodies in the image of God’s children (and in turn, in the image of their father for were we not all made in His visage?) or asking to use a body that will no longer be used.  The sick, the weary, the downtrod: those who say yes are delivered by the angels unto Death and so might good be done in the world.  When among us though they keep their many wings and many eyes and when they blink it seems the light bends and the world shivers around them.

But they seldom gather together.  To be so close to so many of their siblings is painful to them - it reminds them of the time before when they had their Father and their home, when they had a glorious garden and Lucifer was the shining son they all could look to as an example.

Where is God?  Hard to say and you’ll find angels sitting in churches to hear the voices of the believers singing praises to God on high, their faces bowed not in awe but to hide the anguish.  They help where they can: counsellors, doctors and nurses, not priests but quiet brothers and sisters or perhaps they are even that kindly face who asks if everything is all right on that day where you need to know someone cares.

They walk among us with pain in their smiles but leaving warmth in their wake.  They love us as they were commanded to but it is a command they are willing to obey.

Angels might not understand humans but they will do as commanded by their father and being commanded to love is not always such a bad thing.

Compiled by: Wakahisa Isamu


	5. Nephilim

No longer the monsters of old, the children of the sons of God and the daughters of men but children forever torn.  Children with a connection to the divine, to something higher than mortals can perceive who will turn their faces up to the heavens, closing their eyes to reach out with senses not found in mortal men.  They hear all the others, the siblings of their parents, scattered far and wide throughout the world and beyond.  Feel their light attempting to permeate them.

But they are flesh and blood struggling to contain that light.  Walking a line between two very different worlds with parents who don’t understand.  Who can’t understand.

Even if they angels are no longer all that they were, they still don’t understand humans even as they are drawn to them and look upon their hedonistic wild children with despair, trying to draw them closer to what they know when at the same time they want to protect this fragile child of flesh and blood and power that could tear them apart.  The human parent looks at this child they helped to make (and what a thing it is, painful and glorious, to love and be loved by an angel in the first place) that understands so much more than they ever will.  Because believing and knowing are so different and these children want to believe even when they say they don’t, they want to be as devoted as one parent even as they want to be as flawed as another.

So they bring home demons wearing bodies of their own creations or the stolen forms of humans and wait to see if divine wrath will be brought down upon them.  Only to see fear in the eyes of one and a pain almost as old as time itself in the eyes of another and alone they will sit later and look at the shadows their wings cast and stretch reality around themselves to turn their body into something other, not human, not angel, not anything.

A lonely life, lonelier than one of the angels.

Still, less lonely than the fallen.  No one talks about them at the dinner table.  Instead it’s the stilted, “I’m sorry they’re weird about the whole religion thing” talk when one comes home from church with tears down their cheeks and makes the windows tremble and lights flicker when they say grace.

Even demons bow their heads then and for once don’t flinch at the word of God.


	6. The Drowned Court

There’s always been a fascination with water and the sea and even in this day and age we know so little of it and what lies in wait so perhaps that’s why the Drowned Court is named the way it is.  Not all the occupants have drowned but they live apart, submerged, the mermaids, the sirens, the selkies, the lotan - they who see the world from the darkness where light and sound is muted.

But don’t think them gentle.

The sea reclaims. The sea devours.

The sea is not a kind mistress. The sea wants strength, she wants devotion, she wants obsession.  And rivers will rage too, burst their banks and spread forth.  It’s a well known fact that you can drown in a single inch of water so of course the denizens of watery places are dangerous at a moment’s notice. 

The Drowned Court is a strange one and they tend to keep to themselves more than the others - so many of their members have a form that cannot come to the land and look at selkies and the fact that humans steal their skins to keep them here even now.  Usually it is a God or Goddess who will speak on behalf of this court, the most active of the deities on the level of the courts (usually they intervene on a singular basis as is their custom and as is their ability now, all of them less than they once were, primarily drawing energy from the Veil even as they help to preserve it) but contacts can be found.

More than members, there are strange phenomena associated with this court including the pictured Hands of Nimue (or Viviane, Elaine, Niniane, Nivian, Nyneve, Evienne) or Avalon’s Fingers (as ever, almost everything goes by many names.)  The Hands of Nimue can be found in many places in Great Britain and are said to be prophetic; rumours abound that they raise the dead, bestow enchantments and give forth weapons or items of great power in times of need.  But the more sinister sounding tales are the ones where they will steal away the unwary from this world to take them to Avalon.

It’s so easily forgotten after all, that Avalon is the island of the dead.

Compiled by: Wakahisa Isamu (Court Eternal Flame)


	7. The Usher's Court

We meet in a graveyard.  It should be a frightful cliche but it’s not, instead it’s quiet, peaceful and serene, well tended green grass and an endless array of headstones.  This is only one facet of Death that I see - Death looks slightly different to everyone and perhaps because I’ve come here with an idea in my head, he looks the way he does in popular culture: a man (the voice is masculine and there is something of masculinity in his bearing) in a black robe, his face hidden and - after I ask - he does indeed carry a scythe.

"There are many of me, we are everywhere all at once you see, _I_ am everywhere at once - this world and others, the beginning and the end and I will appear as is fitting when I do appear,” he says as he watches a couple placing flowers, pink and white, by a grave, their faces pinched.  With his cold bony hand upon my shoulder we are both hidden from their view.    
"And you have your helpers, yes?"  I ask as he leads us further and to that end of all graveyards and cemetaries where the fancy headstones are found, the imposing or beautiful sculpted pieces where great love (and money) have been spent to craft such a memorial.  We take a seat at the benches provided, bright white.  Or rather, I sit.  Death clambers up to sit himself on one of these such headstones and for a moment I am struck by the image of a king on his throne. 

His chuckle (perhaps he knows this thought) draws me back to the world.

"I have the reapers or grim reapers and all the death omens to warn before and the psychopomps who help them to adjust to what lies beyond.  You met them, of course."  
I nod.  After all, I have died many times, but for a phoenix it is simply a matter of regeneration.  “I did.  All of them were very polite, we chatted while I waited for the flame to flicker to life again.”  
"I much prefer to call my Court a house if I am honest, I think of them all as family and I do like that most of your funeral homes are family businesses - after all, I will claim them all one day.  It’s only right I take something from them."  
  
Even for me, a phoenix, someone who knows death and who has killed as is my duty to the Courts, to be around Death is an experience, humbling and terrifying but there is something warm and parental about him and so for the rest of the afternoon I let him talk to me about banshees and dullahans, reapers and angels and demons, personal stories.

And it is rather like a father or grandfather speaking fondly of each and everyone one of their relations.

Compiled by: Wakahisa Isamu (Court Eternal Flame)


	8. Scavengers

The scavenger is a poorly understood creature that forms a lifelong pair bond when young that lasts until one or both of the scavengers die.  Scavengers usually look similar to humans when passing amongst them though they give off a foul smell described as close to rotting meat and they have many needle sharp teeth as well as nails that resemble talons, both of which possess a potent mix of venom and flesh-eating bacteria.  When startled, alone or feeding, their faces transform to a set of nested mouths like lampreys.  The typical lifespan of a scavenger is somewhere in the region of thirty to forty years.  They mature rapidly - by the age of two they are fully grown and would pass for human adults. 

Despite the name, scavengers are more than capable of hunting their own prey and a worrying trend shows that they are showing a preference towards hunting and killing with the advent of better disposal of the dead as they only eat animal flesh when starving.  Working as a pair, they will lure away a suitable victim and incapacitate them with the venom found in their teeth and nails.  They take this victim back to their lair to devour slowly, the combination of venom and bacteria rotting the “meat” to their tastes.

Though the mortality rate is high, scavengers will bear three to six young all in an early stage of development - some will refer to them as eggs (closer to those of amphibians) or altricial young still within amniotic sacs - that she and her mate will place within the still living body of their victim.  There, the young will finish developing, drawing nutrients from the host body and will eat their way out.  Scavengers can vary in the level of parental care given to their young; some will live in large family groups hunting together, others will abandon their young.  They will have one clutch a year as soon as they are two until they finally die.

Through their associations with demons (as pets, companions or feeding from their kills) they are said to be part of the Damned Court.  Avoid at all costs, please contact the Courts if scavenger activity is suspected - even hunters know better than to tackle scavengers without aid.

_Field notes of Laurent Proulx_


	9. Court Eternal Flame

I suppose it’s only fair that I write about the Court I count myself a member of, Court Eternal Flame, home to those of fire associations and run by others like myself: the phoenixes.  Like so many others we have unnaturally long lives thanks to a flame within our hearts and so long as it isn’t extinguished, we will live on.  Honestly, the human form is more convenient than the bird form these days although whenever we need to regenerate from wounds too great for our fire to heal, then we turn back into them and burst into flame.  Up go the ashes and hey presto, you’ve got yourself a reborn phoenix.

I should apologise too for the informal tone but you try writing this tome and see how long it takes you to switch things up.

Anyway, the name eternal flame made sense and seeing as we have fire in our hearts, anything involving fire (or in some cases the sun) came to be part of our court.  We’re immortal, it makes sense that we stay in charge to keep an eye on things, keep it all consistent and there aren’t as many as there were - that’s the other reason we ended up switching from the bird form.  People hunted us.  Oh and demons.  Yeah, when demons can’t get their own magic back, they’ll suck out ours and extinguish the flame.  We lost a lot of people then.

There’s not a lot I want to say, there are people who can say it better but we’re always going to be around.  If my fellow court members don’t slay me for it, I’d like to say that we’re tough old birds.  Immortal, made of fire and we’re _old_.  We are some of the oldest damn things on this earth.  We’ve had a long time to learn and knowledge is power.

Dispute me and I’ll smack you with this damn book whenever I get it finished.

Compiled by: Wakahisa Isamu


	10. The Spirit Court

Not all who die will pass on to the afterlife.  There are those who find themselves as something else, another life such as vampires but they are not the subject of this entry. 

Because some will linger, either by their own choice or because that is the way it is.  Death declined to speak to me further on the matter and only reminded me that phoenixes do not regenerate instantly.  Sometimes you get lost for a reason.  They are dead and that is what matters and fate still has a role to play after all. 

They are the hardest to categorise because of their ephermal nature - they never remain constant, they flicker in and out of being, they can be many things at once and naming does not remain consistent.  It would be for a true medium or a hunter to talk about how to recognise you are being haunted or contacted by the other side but the general outcome is one of two things: anger, at being in this state, being unable to truly touch or feel or communicate, or apathy mingled with moments of sorrow, that this is their life and that they cannot complete their journey. 

The Spirit Court is a strange court.  Impossible to relax as things move without a hand to touch them, lights flicker, cold shivers run down your spine, noises echo - the atmosphere is always shifting and moving.  Sometimes a happy affair, sometimes the calm before the storm and sometimes the pain in the room, the heartbreak and the anguish at being _stuck_ in such an existence is too much for the living to bear.

But they are a vital part of the Courts even if they are often the third cause after magic itself  and the activities of demons to pose a danger to the Veil on a constant basis.  They need to have a place somewhere after all, if they are neither still among the living or gone to wherever they are bound.


End file.
